Why is everyone so obsessed with plugin CPU consumption?

[pekadan]

I have great respect for people doing symphonic rock. How the hell do they fit drums, guitars, bass, piano AND a huge foppin orchestra into RAM. They must have a very clever workflow those guys...

A) They may still use the occasional real instrument (especially guitars and drums, probably also basses).

Nooo! F*cking cheaters!!!

[Red_Force]

CPU IMO is an issue and will keep being an issue for years and years and years. Even now there is a ton of things that we simply don't even envisage during design session simply because of CPU. Polyphonie is a direct multiplier for instance (as well as unison). Good sounding filters are not necesserly huge let alone, but once you multiply the CPU usage by 8, it starts to be something. But 8 voices polyphonie, while cool, is largely insufficient for a lot of use. No if you start to have oscillator also hungry on CPU... there start the hard design decisions !

Now, what's Moore's law allready ? double power every years and a half ? Well, so if I need 32 voice polyphonie on Symptohm:Melohman, with every voice being a 8 channel unison and considering I can use an 8 voice polyphonie right now on my system, I need something like *32 CPU power... which is 2^5 so thats 5*1.5 = 7.5 years

(EDIT : of course my math were perfect from the first time, Bitshift/Art is just making cheap joke on me)
Of course, this is an extreme exemple. What will happend is that we'll use the CPU available for a lot of things, unison and polyphonie being just a part of it. But it will be used.

It's true thus that we have passed a point where a lot of the basic needs can be decently handled without having to worry about CPU. Straightforward synthesis, classic effects, etc.

And this is very cool. It means that just using 2 years old stuff you probably never have to worries about CPU. Considering that the know how you have on your stuff matters more than the stuff itself, it says to me that pretty much anyone, as said earlier, can do his music in a very convincing way. Which is great

[bitshift]

Now, what's Moore's law allready ? double power every years and a half ? Well, so if I need 32 voice polyphonie on Symptohm:Melohman, with every voice being a 8 channel unison and considering I can use an 8 voice polyphonie right now on my system, I need something like *16 CPU power... so that's 8*1.5= 12 years from now.

We might get there faster if we can do math:

Required voices = 8 * 32 == 256

Year 0: 8
Year 1.5: 16
Year 3.0: 32
Year 4.5: 64
Year 6.0: 128
Year 7.5: 256

:*

[Sascha Franck]

Hehe.

[Hunter]

I'm using a laptop, so CPU issues ARE crucial.

Why particularly for a laptop? I have a friend with a crazy fast lappy that blows my system out the water

Freezing shouldn't take long unless you're working on film scores or something either?

[Hunter]

CPU IMO is an issue and will keep being an issue for years and years and years. Even now there is a ton of things that we simply don't even envisage during design session simply because of CPU. Polyphonie is a direct multiplier for instance (as well as unison). Good sounding filters are not necesserly huge let alone, but once you multiply the CPU usage by 8, it starts to be something. But 8 voices polyphonie, while cool, is largely insufficient for a lot of use. No if you start to have oscillator also hungry on CPU... there start the hard design decisions !

Now, what's Moore's law allready ? double power every years and a half ? Well, so if I need 32 voice polyphonie on Symptohm:Melohman, with every voice being a 8 channel unison and considering I can use an 8 voice polyphonie right now on my system, I need something like *32 CPU power... which is 2^5 so thats 5*1.5 = 7.5 years

(EDIT : of course my math were perfect from the first time, Bitshift/Art is just making cheap joke on me)
Of course, this is an extreme exemple. What will happend is that we'll use the CPU available for a lot of things, unison and polyphonie being just a part of it. But it will be used.

It's true thus that we have passed a point where a lot of the basic needs can be decently handled without having to worry about CPU. Straightforward synthesis, classic effects, etc.

And this is very cool. It means that just using 2 years old stuff you probably never have to worries about CPU. Considering that the know how you have on your stuff matters more than the stuff itself, it says to me that pretty much anyone, as said earlier, can do his music in a very convincing way. Which is great

Yeah well OK there obviosuly are some issues about it in the macro scheme of things, my rant was about people's moans about it in the current state of play, like complaining how synth x uses 3% more than synth y and why should they use synth x in that case, and how update x.0x uses 1.2% more CPU than the original release version etc etc, and OMG if I plug Kore in my CPU increases noooooooooooo etc etc

[bitshift]

(EDIT : of course my math were perfect from the first time, Bitshift/Art is just making cheap joke on me)

For your listening pleasure, monsieur.

[Teksonik]

I always thought that the CPU thing was a bit of a moot point, but that's due to my workflow. I don't usually run more than 2 or 3 VST at a time, as I usually render the output of say a synth to a .WAV and then layer it into a song. So if said synth uses 75% of my CPU until it is rendered, it really doesn't bother me.

However, it would seem that some people like to run many VST at once, and therefore are only happy if any given VST in their arsenal uses >5%, which is ridiculous and very aggravating if you're into VST development.

However, the ever increasing power of CPUs brings both sides of the argument to an eventual syncretism anyway, so no worries.

That's the most lame defense of the Synth Edit Cpu curse I've ever heard.

[Rabid]

I agree with about everything Sascha Franck said in this thread. When I was studying classical piano as a kid I always played a song the same way, over and over and over. Once I became a drummer in a rock and roll band I got into the habit of changing things up. Now I never consider a track finished until a song is finished. "I think I will move the bass drum in this measure back 1/8 a beat. Now I need to adjust the bass guitar to match. Now to counter that with a guitar riff leading into the beat. Oops. Now the accent on the hi-hat needs to be switched around." During the process of creating a song I jump from track to track to track making adjustments. It is hard enough getting ideas down before the thought escapes my pitiful little mind. Having to pause and freeze or unfreeze only makes me frustrated. I need to stay relaxed and comfortable if I want to push a creative moment for all that it is worth. That is why I tend to start songs on hardware. My old Emu XL-7 can put out a lot of sound without pausing to freeze tracks.

[Sascha Franck]

Why particularly for a laptop? I have a friend with a crazy fast lappy that blows my system out the water

Well, I only have a 1.86GHz laptop, which doesn't blow anything out of the water.
My fault? Perhaps. But perhaps not.

Freezing shouldn't take long unless you're working on film scores or something either?

See Rabids reply. I want to be able to change things and move files around whenever I feel like. My current hosts don't allow for that once something is frozen. Heck, Logic/PC doesn't even freeze.
Maybe I should get myself into Sonar or Samplitude (which are handling freeze files a lot better), but I really don't feel like. Plus, altering the source MIDI data would still result into the same problems.

Really, I don't want to ever do something I can't do with all instruments and FX playing in realtime.

[rp314]

Well, IMHO, the points made in the original post are generally very good. When Cakewalk put out Sonar 4 or 5 there was a glitch that made it appear that the cpu was maxing out when in fact it wasn't. There was a patch to correct this but as somebody asked in a similar post, why don't folks just worry about this when the DAW misbehaves or appears to be unable to handle the project rather than spend their time looking at technical information that may or may not be accurate. I started out on a MacPlus running at 8MHz and I think that any computer running at or near 2GHz is probably going to do what I'm expecting of it, regardless of what the cpu meter is telling me.

[NotTheCommonDose]

Why is everyone so obsessed with plugin CPU consumption?....

Wtf kind of a question is that... I hope to god it wasn't serious.

[cptgone]

try bouncing or freezing once in a while, you might like it

i hates it. it sucks the pope's dog, head to tail. i wants teh open road, all the way down, makes me drool like poodle.

[xoxos]

Why is everyone so obsessed with plugin CPU consumption?....

Wtf kind of a question is that... I hope to god it wasn't serious.

basically the rules are you can say whatever you want.. until someone or something stops you.

human beings can have very protracted priorities, eg. how the license for 'personal amusement' is coddled in consumer-based culture..

it gives people an excuse to live their lives consuming technology to answer these posts..

and yes, saying so makes me a hypocrite if one wishes to press the point. but.... a hypocrite for prevention..

[bambooman]

hmm...

well it's very simple
if i would like to use "for example":

several bigger/hungry synths like h.g.stuff
plus using SIR with big impulses,
plus - i wanted all in live mode
the cpu jumps while playing the track..

which means it jumps from 50%-99%
and if i keep on working with the track..
there comes the point where it goes over 100%
just for a second or two..and freezes my system.

so, that is what i don't like about it.

but ... i have to get used to do the "bounce thing"
it is wiser to do so - anyways...
since it keeps the project cleaner/better overview etc.